


The Start of a Huntress

by DMBLaan99



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Early Days, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 20:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DMBLaan99/pseuds/DMBLaan99
Summary: On an unassuming world, a small orphaned girl tossed and turned in her sleep, about to wake up on the fifth day of her training to become the greatest hunter in the galaxy.





	The Start of a Huntress

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a link for more information about this character, https://www.notebook.ai/plan/characters/634437
> 
> See end notes for pronunciation/definition of some words/names.

“The Start of a Huntress”

* * *

               On an unassuming world, a small orphaned girl tossed and turned in her sleep, about to wake up on the fifth day of her training to become the greatest hunter in the galaxy. As the sun began to peek over the horizon of the forest landscape, she too started to stir awake, her crimson eyes glowing in the darkness of her makeshift tent. As she crawled out of her tent she looked around at her camp.

  
               “Well that’s a relief.” She said to herself, blinking in the cold morning light. It was indeed a welcome relief as the previous morning she had awoken to a small disaster around her camp. Much of her unsecured camping gear had been thrown around in a chaotic manner. She was lucky that nothing important was broken.

  
                Kebiin remembered what her new mother told her when they first approached the world. Her mother’s words rang in her head even now, _“Where you will be camping most of the wildlife will have begun to start to prepare for winter. Don’t think that that means you won’t have to work to survive. While most of the larger predators have already begun to hibernate, there are still a fair number of smaller ones still roaming around.”_

  
                Before her mother left, she’d gave Kebiin two days of food rations and three days clean water, along with some basic camping equipment. While Kebiin was able to stretch her food rations to the morning of the fourth day, she began to feel very hungry. She knew that today she would have to find something to eat, either by hunting or by gathering food from the nearby plants.

  
                Kebiin ducked back into her tent to retrieve the blaster she had brought with her from the ship she was rescued from. She looked at it remembering it had only been a few months since that day, the day that her new mother had rescued her from the slaver’s ship. The blaster Kebiin now held in her hand was the same one that she used to save her new mother with, having been used to shoot a slaver who had pretended to be dead before he could kill her liberator. She was told to keep it, something to remember her past by, and something to protect herself with. She now looked at the blaster knowing that it was both the last thing from her old life, and the first thing from her new one.  
Before she left to investigate more of the area she decided to check on her water supply.

  
                “Looks like I’m going to need to find more of this too.” She remarked dryly noticing that her clean water was almost gone.

  
                She knew of the river slightly to the east of where she made camp. While she was unable to follow it very far upon finding it on her second day, she knew that she would have to try today. Hoping that there would also be some animals gathering to get their own water, she quickly packed the scanner and one of the empty containers she had. Kebiin also carefully placed her knife into her pack for the trip. As she started off, she holstered the blaster onto her back and began to make precise mental notes of her surroundings, so she’d be able to find her way back quickly.

               Even though she loved the warmth of the sun on her blue-gray skin, the morning was a bit chillier than she had prepared for. Not that she was that bothered by cold weather. Chiss come from a cold world, or so she had been told. She spent so much of her early life on the slaver's ship that she knew very little about the rest of the galaxy, much less anytthing about herself or where she came from.

  
               Eventually she caught sight of the river’s edge. After a quick look around from her place in the tree line to make sure it was clear of predators, she made her way down to the bank. She was thankful that these first few days had gone by without too much incident, but between waking up to a mess of her camp the previous day and the unsettling lack of wildlife so far, Kebiin was worried that her luck was beginning to become a limited resource. Once she reached the water, and determined which way it was flowing, she decided to follow it up stream a bit to see if she could find its source, but not until she made a small rock pile to mark where she had started.

  
                After about an hour she found a spot where the river had formed a small pond, only a few meters across. Once again Kebiin surveyed the area and carefully checked for signs of danger. At first she thought that maybe she was being too cautious, until she found a large tree half knocked over. There was clearly a mix of claw marks, forming deep gashes in the wood, from at least a couple different animals based on the differing sizes. However, she could not figure out which set might have caused the tree to fall. She could tell it had happened within the last week or so, but there was no evidence to indicate that it was from weather or old age. She walked the area one more time before making her way back to the water.

  
                After filling the empty container she had brought with water, the young camper caught a glance of herself in the still water. She took another look when she was done and wondered if her past self from the slaver’s ship would recognize the face now looking back at her. On the ship she had been very thin from lack of food and her skin was even grayer looking, though she did note that her jet black hair was just as wild now as it had then.

  
                “Nothing for it I suppose.” Kebiin thought out load, pulling at a few strands of her hair.

  
                Taking a closer look at her skin now, it was a much healthier color for a chiss child, or so she’d been told by her new human mother. Her new mother had what might have once been fair skin, but now tanned and weather beaten, with straight blond hair cut just short of the top of her neck. She thought that most people would have called her a “handsome” woman, but to Kebiin she was more beautiful than any of the noble she had occasionally seen from her cell on the slaver’s ship.

  
                “Kebiin-Genet, blue-gray…” she said to herself with a smile, the new name given to her by her new mother.

  
                Her mother was part of a small Mandalorian clan. The Mandalorians themselves were made up of many different races and clans, and seen the galaxy over as the greatest of hunters and warriors. And now she, Kebiin, was training to join her mother’s clan. Suddenly a sound of splashing brought little Kebiin back to the present, as she whipped around, looking for the source of the noise.

  
                It didn’t take long to find it, as about 10 meters away she saw a huge and strangely beautiful new creature. The creature’s shoulders stood about seven feet from the ground, its massive body supported by four long legs. Its body was covered in fine white scales with an opalescent sheen. Two large gray antlers crowned the top of its head.

  
                The creature didn’t seem to notice Kebiin as it bent down to drink. She thought for a moment to reach for her blaster, only to glance behind her and realize that it was just far enough behind her on the bank that she would have to move and change her standing position to get to it. When she looked back up to check on the creature, it was now staring right at her. As they locked eyes she saw that it had the same red eyes as she did. She broke its gaze when she heard more rustling from the tree line. Looking toward the sounds to see two more smaller creatures, but these were a darker mossy green and brown color but with the same, if not slightly duller, sheen. Much better for blending into the environment during the spring and summer Kebiin suspected.

  
                Kebiin turned back to the one next to her to see it digging at the ground with its three towed hoof and pulling up a large purple beet like plant from the river bank. After a few more minutes the creature trotted back up to the forest to join its fellows with a few of the dug up roots in its mouth. Then, quietly, the three animals disappeared into the thicket.

  
                After a moment of thought, Kebiin looked around for a suitable rock for her to use as a digging tool. That done, she began to cut into the ground as the creature did and after a few tries she found one of the plants for herself.

  
                “Hopefully they taste better then they look.” Kebiin thought aloud, noting the slime like film covering the plants as they were pulled from the shallow river bed. After scanning it and determining it to be quite safe to eat, she set out to dig up a few more, before making her way back to her camp.

  
                The day was mostly done by the time Kebiin made it back to camp with her sack now full of the plants she had gathered. She was glad to find that her makeshift home was more or less the same as when she left it. After getting a fire started for the approaching evening and setting up the water purifier with the water she had collected from the river, she began to question the best way to eat the plants she had dug up. She determined to try and cook them before trying to eat them raw. To do this she decided to simply cut one up and cook it on a stick. She repeated something her mother said to her while she was preparing for her training, _“’Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.’”_

  
                While her stomach was starting to growl more hungrily, she paid it no mind. She had gone hungry in the past for much longer on the slaver’s ship. As she waited for her meal to cook on the fire, she thought back to her encounter with the creature that showed her how to find it. She was somewhat glad she didn’t have to kill it for food. She had thought it might have been an albino given the other two in the tree line. It must have had to fight hard to have lived and grown as big as it was, lacking basic camouflage to hide it. Kebiin felt a pull of kinship at this thought. She too knew what it was like to have to fight to survive, but she also knew the importance of hiding.

  
                That’s when she was painfully reminded of her only regret from that time, the life she had to take to save her own. She had occasionally heard the slavers talk about their first kill. Most said they didn’t feel anything or that they felt a kind of numbness, but they all agreed it got easier over time. Part of Kebiin now hoped that it would never feel easy.

  
                If it were anyone else that day she had to kill, she thought it might have felt closer to the feelings described by the slavers. But she knew the young human teen. He was bigger and meaner than any of the other child slaves on the ship. That’s probably why the crew liked him to the point of “deputizing” him to help them keep the other children in line. A job he did with pride, thinking that this favoritism made him better somehow. But even back then Kebiin knew that to the crew he would always be a slave, albeit an obedient one.

  
                When she had to kill him to save the life of her rescuer, just a stranger to her then, Kebiin had felt a great deal more emotion than she had been lead to believe. So much that once it was done she had immediately return to her hiding spot under the upturned bunch of tables, not out of fear from her savior or even other potential surviving crew members, but fear of herself, of what she had done, of killing. Even when her rescuer came to her saying, “Come ad'ika, you’re safe now.” All she could do was curl into a fetal position until she felt her new mother’s warm gloved hand gently on her.

  
                Now reminded of that feeling as she gazed deeply into the fire alone on that lonely world, she decided to promise herself something personal. Something she would never tell anyone, but would keep to herself, holding it in high regard. She would never kill anyone if there were ANY other options available.

  
                Kebiin knew that there would be times where she would have to kill if she was to be a mandalorian one day, but she would always look for an alternate solution where she could. But a promise alone wasn’t enough. She needed a reminder, something she could keep with her always. That’s when Kebiin decided.

  
                She searched for her pack from earlier and once found she took out the survival knife.

  
                “This would be a lot easier if you were a vibro-knife…” She complained holding the silvery blade near the fire to heat it up.

  
                Self-electrified vibro-knifes were better for combat, but not for general survival in the wilderness. Once satisfied that the blade was hot enough she took it upon herself. Holding the knife in her left hand she took a deep breath and clenched her teeth onto a strap of her pack, as she began to cut from the top of her right brow down to her cheek, careful to not cut her eye in the process. She would not allow herself to cry out as she did.

  
                _“This pain must be a reminder to me.”_ Kebiin thought to herself.

  
                There wasn’t as much blood as she was expecting thanks to the preheated knife blade cauterizing much of the wound as it was cutting. After cleaning up what was left and realizing that the food was thankfully not badly burned, and wasn’t too bad tasting, Kebiin was ready to continue her training with a new resolve toward her goal. She would join her mother’s Clan and be a mandalorian, but she would do it her own way.

**Author's Note:**

> kebiin [kay-BEEN] - blue (the color)  
> genet [geh-NET] - gray (the color)  
> ad'ika [ah-DEE-kah] - little one, son, daughter, of any age - also used informally to adults much like *lads* or *guys*


End file.
